Barricade
by PrimrosesInTheRain
Summary: In May 1968, a group of starry-eyed Parisian students lead their own revolt against the administration of the University of Paris. They believe in a new dawn, a new republic for France-but whether they will get one is a different matter entirely. Eponine watches, as she always does, and when the crossfire comes-as it always does-the barricades will fall, and they all might too.
1. In Which They Meet

**Notes**: So, to start with, this is a May 1968 AU. A bit of background: in May 1968 Parisian university students were staging protests, which eventually escalated into full riots. There are a lot of similarities between May 1968 and the June Rebellion of 1832, so an AU works really well with it:) I tried to make this story as historically accurate as possible, but there are probably some (or many) mistakes in here, so bear with me (or if you could point them out for me, even better:D) I already have a _lot _of this story written, but whether or not I post it depends on reviews. So, if you want to see this continue, please review:) Even a few words would be great, and I'll love you forever!

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**BARRICADE**

**CHAPTER I**

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_For Tiasha, who has basically beta-read every single chapter of this story and put up with my constant indecision over plot points—thanks :)_

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Éponine has always been distant. She works at Shakespeare and Company at number 37 rue de la Bûcherie (and occasionally sleeps there too) but Monsieur Whitman, who knows she isn't the best with people, usually just lets her straighten the permanently crooked towers of books. When she occasionally has to interact with customers, she does so perfunctorily, with politeness and a smile that reaches her dimples but not her eyes.

Ever since she was a child in the suburb of Montfermeil and firsthand experienced the abusive family relationships most other children only hear about, Éponine has preferred looking at the world through a camera lens. You see things differently through lenses—sharper. And the best part? You can focus on whatever you want.

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December, 1967. A young man races along the rue de la Bûcherie. He has the perpetually frazzled look of the students, with his coat buttons done wrong, and a dark red collar sticking halfway up. His blond hair has gotten too long, neglected in favor of textbooks and essays, and it blows into his blue eyes. His name is Enjolras.

He enters number 37—a bookshop—with some difficulty, owing to the textbooks and papers and journals crammed into his arms. It's warm inside, in varying states of disarray, stacks of teetering books everywhere. A young woman sits in a corner beside the only neat stack of books in the whole shop, her dark hair covering her face as she scribbles in a black notebook.

"Excuse me, mademoiselle," Enjolras says. "Do you…do you work here?" At Shakespeare and Co. there are often writers around who live in the bookshop in exchange for working there.

The girl looks up, startled. She jumps up, letting go of her notebook, and she stares wide-eyed at Enjolras. "_Monsieur Whitman!_" she calls out, eyes still glued to Enjolras. "Monsieur Whitman, a customer!"

"You take care of him, Éponine! I'm busy!" replies another voice from somewhere in the recesses of the shop, presumably Monsieur Whitman.

The girl—Éponine—swallows nervously. "Um…yes. Hello, monsieur, how may I help you?" Her voice comes out awkwardly stilted and Enjolras can tell that these are not words she normally has to say.

He gives her a kind smile, hoping to calm her down, and berates himself for startling her. "I'm looking for a book," he says, then awkwardly tries to extricate the piece of paper he'd scrawled the title of the book on from his pocket—simultaneously doing his best not to drop anything and cause a minor earthquake in the shop.

"Here—let me help you." Her voice has lost a bit of its haltingness, but she still seems shy. After Éponine takes a few of the books from Enjolras's arms, he is able to get to his pockets—but nothing is there.

"Sorry—I swear I had something…"

Éponine turns and looks at the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves behind her. "Well. Do you remember the author?"

Enjolras closes his eyes, tries to recall. "I…yes. Yes, I do—I think it was Sartre." Éponine nods, then begins to hunt through the books. There's obviously some sort of method to the madness, as she is able to quickly procure an entire selection of Sartre's works.

Soon Enjolras has the book he needed, and he smiles at Éponine. "Thank you, mademoiselle," he says, and she smiles.

"My name is—" she starts, but Enjolras cuts her off.

"Éponine. Yes, I know."

She smiles again. "Yes, I believe Monsieur Whitman mentioned it."

"Yes." Enjolras seems at a loss for words now, clutching his books and staring at her.

"I believe that generally you are to say your name, now, monsieur," Éponine laughs.

He blinks. "Enjolras," he tells her. "Enjolras is my name."

Éponine smiles, and this time it reaches her eyes.

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**Notes: **I know it's short, but I have more written! Thanks for reading, I hope you liked it and please review:)


	2. In Which We Meet Les Amis

**Notes: **Thank you so much for the follows and the favorites, and special thanks to Phoenixflames12, Joly's Witty Girl, and the Guest who reviewed!:) I hope you all enjoy this next chapter (you'll get to meet the Amis—the party has arrived whoop whoop) and please don't forget to review.

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**BARRICADE**

**CHAPTER II**

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The upstairs of the Café Musain is busy that night, filled with students from the University of Paris, who crowd the place with loud, drunken voices. Usually Enjolras towers over them all, orating dramatically over the din, about subjects from how Christian Fouchet, the head of the Ministry of Education is an illusionist who does nothing, to the bourgeoisie and their penchant for sitting idly as the students suffer.

Today, though, he sits alone in a corner with only the shadows for company.

Without Enjolras keeping control, chaos rules in the Café Musain. His friends (left-wing radicals who call themselves Les Amis de l'ABC) seem to have elected Grantaire as their temporary leader, probably owing to the fact that Grantaire, due to his alcohol-impaired judgment, is more than willing to supply the booze for all of them.

Grantaire—an art student who doesn't study much beyond the art of alcohol—takes a swig of beer and raises it towards Enjolras. "Apollo!" he slurs. "Why so silent?"

Courfeyrac—technically _de Courfeyrac_ (he renounced his nobility years ago)—staggers over to Enjolras, and flops into the wooden seat beside him. "Enjolras! Where is your usual, ah…" He waves his hands in flamboyant motions, hunting for the right word.

"Speech?" asks Enjolras, slightly amused by the extent of his friend's drunkenness.

"_Yes!_" Courfeyrac practically shouts, pointing at Enjolras with such force that Enjolras flinches backwards to avoid being stabbed. "Yes, exactly. Where, Enjolras, my friend, is your usual rambling speech of inspiration, you know—" Courfeyrac stands up on his chair, teetering a bit. "_Fellow students and countrymen, lend me your ears! The right-wing has once again ignored our voice. Will we allow this to happen? Will we let the administrators at the university walk over us like we are nothing?!" _His uncanny imitation of Enjolras earns him a round of rousing applause from the rest of Les Amis, all crowded around Grantaire. "Thank you, thank you," Courfeyrac takes a sweeping bow and careens off the wooden chair, hitting his head and immediately passing out.

Two of Les Amis—Courfeyrac's best friends, Jehan and Combeferre—carry Courfeyrac's unconscious body away from the center of the Café Musain and push him beside the wall. They proceed to pour a bucket of water onto him, and he comes to shouting curse words to the ceiling and flailing wildly.

Enjolras observes the chaos surrounding Courfeyrac as he shouts at Jehan—calling him by his full name _Jean Prouvaire you bourgeois pig _and "accidentally" smacking Combeferre's glasses clean off his face. At that moment, Grantaire settles comfortably into the seat beside him, cradling his glass bottle of beer in his arms. "So, Enjolras," he says conversationally, and Enjolras merely glares.

"What do you want, Grantaire?"

"No need to be hostile, Enj," he says, his lips practically glued to the neck of his bottle. "I'm just trying to be a good friend."

"Don't call me Enj." With that, Enjolras turns away from Grantaire, who has always irritated him the most out of all Les Amis, with his cynicism and constant sarcasm and dispassion for their cause. That, and his fondness for idiotic pet names.

Grantaire laughs. "I was just wondering why our dear leader is being so sullen tonight. Courfeyrac makes a good point. No rousing speeches, no passionate shouting…why, it's just not like you."

Enjolras turns and looks at Grantaire, marveling at his capacity for speaking coherently under the influence of so much alcohol. "How are you still even functioning? With all that alcohol in your system, you should be dead by now."

Grantaire shrugs. "I've learned to hold my alcohol. Ask Joly, he probably can come up with some morbid disease that is the cause of my capacity for the stuff." The medical student turns upon hearing his name, and sits down across from Enjolras, his usual cigar permanently clamped between his teeth.

"Did someone mention me?" Joly grins, happiness being his permanent emotion. "Enjolras! You're behaving very strangely today. Have you fallen in love?"

Enjolras knows that Joly asks arbitrarily, by rote, rhetorically—but all the same he blinks at the question and thinks of the girl from the bookshop that afternoon. Grantaire catches the look on Enjolras's face and he grins. "He has, hasn't he? What's her name?"

_Éponine_, thinks Enjolras.

"No one," he says.

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**Notes: **Thanks so much for reading (and again, thanks to the reviewers from last chapter...and to the lurkers too:P) I hope you all liked the Amis, and please review!


	3. In Which Enjolras Is Baffled

**Notes: **Thank you all again for the follows and favorites! Now, thanks to my friend on here, Stacey (Deadtom77) for reviewing both of the chapters so far and also thanks to Phoenixflames12 who reviewed again:) I'm really happy that you guys liked my portrayal of (the very drunken) Amis last chapter. No Amis this time, but don't worry, they'll be back. In this chapter we get more E/É time, and we get more characterization. I'll shut up now, and let you get to reading. I hope you enjoy!:)

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**BARRICADE**

**CHAPTER III**

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The bell above the door of Shakespeare and Company rings cheerily, announcing the arrival of a customer. Enjolras enters, arms filled once again with his work. "_Éponine?_" he whispers. The shop is empty, save for the books, and it seems to be the sort of place that demands quiet.

"Monsieur?" A man with a shock of white hair and bushy eyebrows steps out from behind a tower of books. "My name is George Whitman; I am the proprietor of this shop. May I help you?" he asks Enjolras in accented French.

"I'm looking for Mademoiselle Éponine," replies Enjolras, glancing towards the corner of the shop where she had been sitting before, as if hoping to catch a glimpse of her scribbling in that black notebook with the tidy stack of books at her side.

Whitman regards Enjolras suspiciously from beneath the mass of his eyebrows; then something seems to click. "Oh! You are that student who was in here the other day! Jean-Paul Sartre, was it not?"

Enjolras nods. "Yes, I believe I spoke with one of your workers…"

"Yes, yes, that was Éponine Thénardier." All of a sudden Whitman looked slightly worried. "Listen, boy, you mustn't be too harsh on her, she isn't used to working with the customers. I was busy and so she was left to—"

"Monsieur Whitman, Éponine was perfectly fine. I just wanted to see her again."

At that statement Whitman's entire demeanor changed, his highly expressive eyebrows leading the charge. "Oh, is that so, young man? And does _she _wish to see _you_ again?"

Enjolras shrugs, biting his lip. "I don't know, monsieur. That's what I came to find out."

Whitman appraises Enjolras for a few moments. "Now, you listen to this, young man," he says; though he is of no relation to Éponine he has come to regard her as a second daughter. "Éponine has seen a great deal in her life. Good and bad. She has a bright future and she does not need you coming in to ruin that."

"Monsieur, I won't hurt her, I swear." Enjolras's eyes are slightly worried, intimidated by this American man with dominating eyebrows and an overwhelming protection of Éponine.

Whitman laughs long and hard at that; his laugh is deep-throated and earth-shaking—Enjolras only grows more and more apprehensive. "You…hurt…Éponine?" Whitman chokes out. "Hah! That would never happen. Éponine can take care of herself. I am far more worried about her hurting you."

Enjolras's eyebrows knit themselves into furrows almost as deep as Whitman's brow. "Éponine…hurting me? What do you—" At that precise moment Éponine walks around a bookshelf to the front of the shop, nose buried in a book. She has on glasses today that make her eyes look preternaturally large, and her hair is in a braid down her back. Enjolras finds that he really likes her glasses, and has a bit of trouble with breathing.

"Monsieur Whitman, I have a question…" She looks up and sees Enjolras. Internally, she suffers a miniature heart attack, but the only outward evidence she displays is the miniscule widening of her eyes.

"Mademoiselle," says Enjolras, nodding his head politely. He catches the look in Éponine's eyes, and is suddenly worried.

Éponine jerks her head towards Whitman, only looking at Enjolras out of the corner of her eye. "Monsieur Whitman," she hisses. "What is he doing here?"

"He…" Whitman seems at a loss for what to do. "He says he wishes to see you." He shrugs in confusion.

Éponine takes a deep breath, then turns awkwardly to Enjolras. "I regret to say that I cannot see you. Good day, Monsieur Enjolras," she says formally, the statement accompanied with a stiff bow. Éponine turns and rushes out of the shop, leaving Enjolras staring after her in equal parts disappointment, shock and wonder.

"I told you she might hurt you," shrugs Whitman. "Éponine…Éponine is not like most girls. Well, she isn't like most people in general. She learned very early what pain is, and I believe that she hid herself from others to avoid the pain."

Enjolras nods slowly. "Yes, she hid herself very, very well."

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**Notes: **Again, I know it's short, but I tend to end the chapter whenever the thought ends :P Don't worry, they'll get longer (I think 0_0) Thank you all for reading this—but I have one request:) Some of you followed/favorited this story or followed/favorited me, but didn't review. I really appreciate it, but reviews are really helpful, both as motivation and to let me know what you guys think of the story and what you like and what you don't. So I would really love it if you would review as well. Thanks:)


	4. In Which They Debate

**Notes**: Thank you so much to Phoenixflames12 for reviewing once again last chapter, and thank you as well to Musichetta, who reviewed the past two chapters as well:) We get more historical context in this chapter (which may possibly be all horribly incorrect 0_0) If you catch any massive mistakes, I would appreciate it so much if you PM'd me or reviewed to tell me! So, I hope you enjoy!

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**BARRICADE**

**CHAPTER IV**

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He finds her later that same day, sitting in a bench beside the Seine. He's far enough away that she doesn't see him, so he is able to watch her for a few moments. He had learned long ago that people are always different when they can't see you observing.

Éponine, she was very different. According to Whitman, she had long ago learned to hide herself away, how to keep others out. But watching her now, Enjolras discovers that Éponine only hides when she is conscious of others. Now, her guard is down and she seems a wholly different person.

She is relaxed in her bench seat, her eyes fixed on a book. The wind blows a few wisps of dark brown hair that have escaped her braid, and she wears a faded blue dress that seems very out of character for her. The last time Enjolras saw her, she was clad in the Left Bank uniform of all the female students—skinny black pants, a striped sweater. Today's dress looks older, almost from the war era. Perhaps it is. Enjolras knows precious little about her, he realizes—Éponine is an enigma to him.

He wonders if perhaps she isn't an enigma to everybody.

Just then, she glances up and sees him. Enjolras curses silently, because now she's sure to get angry or nervous or worse, rush off like she did earlier that morning in the shop. But she doesn't. Instead, Éponine graces him with a small smile, and motions him over.

Slightly apprehensively, Enjolras walks to the bench and sits beside her. For a while he doesn't know what to say, and it seems awfully cliché but it's all right because nothing needs to be said. There is just him and her and Paris and the river.

After a few minutes of just him and her and Paris and the river (which was philosophically great at first but unfortunately he is not Combeferre and it is getting mundane) he turns to her and reads the title of her book aloud. "_The Opium of the Intellectuals_. Raymond Aron." He had had to read that book once, and had heartily disagreed with its viewpoints on how Marxism was foolish and idiotic and etc., etc., etc. Then, more to himself than to her, he says, "So you're one of _those_ people."

She hears and snaps her head towards him. "By one of _those _people do you mean levelheaded and sensible? Because then yes, I am." Enjolras sighs. He's done it again, brought out the sharp side of Éponine, the side that is almost always constantly brandished at the rest of the world.

"No, I mean—I just mean—you're one of the…the…" He can think of nothing but insulting terms to describe the non-revolutionary students at the University, other than _bourgeois_, which Éponine most certainly is not. "One of the…right-wings," he finishes weakly.

"I am not. I only think that all those…_rebels_…are wasting their time. Pretending that China and Communism is so wonderful? What do they even actually _know _about China?" Enjolras grows heated at her words, as she disparages everything he stands for.

"We know that France has grown lazy! Weak! We know that our supposed Fifth Republic is a complete _failure_, and our lovely president Charles de Gaulle is doing absolutely nothing about it." As he speaks, Enjolras grows more and more impassioned. Éponine has no idea, but she is about to be introduced to the revolutionary leader inside the mild-mannered student. "It is time we bring back the days of old, when it was recognized as _duty _to throw off an oppressive government. The days when a Frenchman was courageous above all others! When _the people _held the power."

Enjolras finishes his speech, leaving Éponine slightly shell-shocked. After a few moments, she finds the words (albeit not the most masterful) to answer. "You used…you used the pronoun _we_. You are one of the radicals, then?" Enjolras swallows, then nods, realizing that probably telling the girl he is slightly in love with that his political views are entirely different from hers may not be the wisest of courses. Éponine blinks a few times, and for a quick second something akin to emotion flashes through her eyes; but she wipes it away and becomes like stone once more.

"Are you…if I am a radical does that mean…" Enjolras knows exactly what he wants to ask: _If I am a radical does that mean you will never love me_? But the words won't come. How can he ask her such a thing, when he has known her for the span of less than a week? How can he let her know just how close he is to falling in love with her?

Éponine takes a deep breath. "Monsieur Enjolras…" His heart leaps at hearing her refer to him by his name (even if it is just his last name); he chooses to ignore the fact that she has added the formal address of _monsieur_. "I do not agree with you. I think that the Maoists are naïve and stupid; they know nothing of China or Communism yet they are fervent perpetrators of the philosophy." His heart falls. She seems to have caught a glimpse of his heartbreak on his face, as she hastily adds: "But, monsieur, you are not Maoist. You may think yourself to be one, but you are not. You are…you are a revolutionary and that is all. And for that you have my respect."

Enjolras cannot control the smile that splits across his face at her words. _Respect _isn't exactly the emotion he feels for her, or that he wants her to feel for him, but it is better than irritation, or disgust, or worst of all, disdain for his love of Patria.

He stands up, towering over her where she sits on the bench. "Mademoiselle," he says with a sweeping bow, taking her hand and kissing it in a flamboyantly chivalrous gesture. "I would like you to meetmy friends. May I have the pleasure of escorting you to a meeting of Les Amis de l'ABC?"

She laughs, standing up beside him. "Of course. But I'll have you know, monsieur, I am a feminist. I do not need any man escorting me anywhere. I am perfectly capable of escorting my own self, thank you." She extracts her hand from his; he would be hurt but the light in her eyes tells him that she is joking.

He bows outrageously deeply once more. "Of course, mademoiselle." His hat falls off, and this elicits a laugh from Éponine. Quickly, he sneaks a kiss onto her cheek. "I apologize greatly for my chauvinism."

Éponine turns her face away, towards the river. He cannot see it but she is smiling—the real smile she barely ever uses. The smile she smiled on the first day they met; the first day her smile reached her eyes.

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**Notes: **See, it did get slightly longer:) Thank you all for reading! I would love to know what you thought of the political debate sections of this chapter? Those were slightly more difficult to write 0_0 Also I'd love to know how you feel about Éponine's characterization as well? Please review telling me!:) Next chapter, Éponine will be meeting the Amis! So, we'll see how that goes:) Don't forget to review!


	5. In Which A Girl Is Brought to the Musain

**Notes**: Thank you so much to frustratedstudent, Musichetta, and Phoenixflames12 for reviewing the last chapter. We return to the Musain in this chapter, and the Amis will as well. Hope you enjoy, and please review:)

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**BARRICADE**

**CHAPTER V**

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This meeting at the Café Musain is much different from the one a few nights previous. The atmosphere is more controlled—less booze being passed around (and therefore less drunkenly rowdy laughter), the conversation is kept at a low murmur rather than full-out shouts. The room is less smoky, because other than Joly and his unbreakable cigar habit everyone else has extinguished their cigarettes. The change could be because Enjolras is in full form today, keeping watch over his friends like an eagle as he makes his Les Amis got wind of the fact that Enjolras would be bringing a _girl _to the meeting and so of course they were all immensely intrigued. Who on earth could their (completely inexperienced with women) leader have persuaded to accompany him to the meeting? So now that they had seen this utterly baffling girl (none of them could understand why she was attracted to Enjolras) they couldn't tear their eyes away.

Of course, Éponine has that effect on most people (though it usually isn't because they can't believe she is dating their best friend.)

No one is actually _certain _she and Enjolras are dating. Enjolras, being the overly private man he was, had told no one about Éponine—and Éponine isn't saying anything either. Really, for all Les Amis knew the two could've been cousins. No one really knows what exactly their relationship entails—and neither do they.

When Enjolras finishes his main speech of the night, there's much whispering between Les Amis as they speculate on the subject. "He's in love with her," says Jehan confidently, asserting his position as the poet who is well versed in all matters romantic. "But she doesn't return that love, I don't think. To her, he's just a friend."

"That doesn't matter. The real question here is, can I start bringing Musichetta to the meetings now?" says Joly, as he stares at Éponine.

"No, _I'm_ going to bring 'Chetta," replies Bossuet.

Jehan rolls his eyes. "Stop arguing over Musichetta, the two of you. Just share her, and be done with it."

When Enjolras brought Éponine to the meeting, Grantaire had begun drinking steadily. Now he's on his second—or is it third?—bottle and his eyes are bleary. "No, no…Enjolras doesn't love her…he can't…" he mumbles quietly.

"You're just in denial, Grantaire," says Courfeyrac, rolling his eyes. "He's in love with her."

"But how…do you know?" slurs Grantaire.

Courfeyrac laughs. "I live with Marius, remember? And he's _still _head over heels for Cosette. I know the look in a man's eyes when he's in love." Their voices have risen to full volume, and when Courfeyrac mentions Marius, Éponine's eyes turn sharply towards their group. She stands and walks quickly to them, sitting beside Courfeyrac.

"Excuse me monsieur. Did you say Marius? Marius Pontmercy?" are her first words, pointed at Courfeyrac who gapes at her in shock.

He snaps his mouth shut. "I…I did, mademoiselle. Why? Do you…do you know him?"

"I do. He used to be my next door neighbor." She speaks stiffly, and in that moment most of Les Amis decides that there is no way Enjolras is in love with her—she is too awkward, too strange, too…emotionless. "Did you…did you say he is in love with a girl named Cosette?"

"I…I did," replies Courfeyrac, who seems to have lost all powers of speech beyond the words _I did_.

Éponine nods, and Les Amis is treated to the first flash of emotion they have seen in her eyes since they met her. "Thank you, monsieur. Now I must go."

She stands and tries to leave quickly, but is stopped by Enjolras.

The members of Les Amis turn to each other, wide-eyed. "What on earth was that about?" asks Courfeyrac, shaking his head.

"I was right," crows Jehan, with no small amount of triumph. "Enjolras loves her, but she does not love him."

They turn back towards Éponine and Enjolras, watching rivetedly as though they are a scene at the cinema. "I have to go," Éponine is saying, her voice thick and choked-sounding.

Enjolras tugs at her hand. "No, please, Éponine, I—what's wrong, don't go, tell me what's wrong—" He tries to convince her to stay with him, but she shakes her head.

"No, no, I have to go." The thickness in her voice escalates into one heartrending sob, and then the tears are gone. She pulls away from Enjolras and heads for the door.

"Stop, Éponine! Tell me what's going on, for God's sake!" Enjolras shouts.

She stops momentarily, and for a collective moment of anticipation everyone in the café wonders if perhaps she will really stay. She turns to Enjolras, places a hand on his cheek. "I'm so sorry, Enjolras," she says quietly, her voice—and eyes—entirely dry.

Then she wrenches the doorknob open and disappears into the night.

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**Notes: **This one was really short again, but the next one is quite a bit longer—it's the longest one so far, I think. Anyways, I hope you enjoyed this chapter—what do you think of Éponine's strange behavior?0_0 Anyway, I hope you'll review and tell me. Thanks:)


	6. In Which Eponine Reminisces

**Notes: **Thank you to the people who have followed in the last few chapters—I hope you're enjoying my story:) Thank you as well to all the wonderful people who reviewed the last chapter: Deadtom77, a whisper away, frustratedstudent, HermsP, Phoenixflames12, and Musichetta—I'm glad you guys are liking it so far. Well, this is my longest chapter yet, so I'm pretty proud of it, and we get a lot more characterization of Éponine—especially her childhood in Montfermeil and her past with Cosette, and the rest of her long, turbulent history. I hope you enjoy!

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**BARRICADE**

**CHAPTER VI**

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As soon as Éponine is a good distance from the Café Musain, she lets herself fall apart. People are different when there's no one to observe them, as Enjolras well knows. And Éponine is an exception to many rules, but not this one. She isn't usually a crier, but when she does cry it's a flash flood. Tears and screams and heartbreak but she wipes it clean in moments.

She's good at wiping herself clean, and she does so now with ease, carefully replacing the cobblestones she's torn up off of the road of her mind.

Emotion is a weakness, and no one knows that better than Éponine. That was one of the many bitter lessons she'd learned from her father back in Montfermeil.

She begins to walk down the Rue Saint-Denis, seeking the solitude of the shadows. She loses track of time, thinking back to her later childhood and the abuse that had come with it. Every day she blames her parents to some degree, but tonight she is especially angry with them. Perhaps if her parents hadn't been so dishonest about earning their money (thievery is hardly a steady source of income) they would still have some.

Maybe right now she would be in Cosette's position, wearing the latest fashions rather than old, ragged dresses she had made herself. Maybe she would be able to afford her own apartment, instead of living in and working at a bookshop in order to get through university. Hell, maybe she would be able to go to university without being crippled with debilitating debt for the next ten-odd years.

As it is, she is working her way through the University of Paris's _serié__littéraire _study, taking courses in art, writing, filmmaking. She is literally broke thanks to her parents. They once had money; she remembers vividly a time back in their inn at Montfermeil when her mother bought her beautiful dresses and told her how beautiful she was, when her father joked and laughed with her and picked her up and spun her around, when her best friend 'Parnasse and her rode bicycles throughout Montfermeil. Those were happy days; they bore the signature golden light of memories that makes everything seem so much more simple and beautiful.

The one shadow in her memories is Cosette, the beautiful girl who Marius is now in love with. Cosette and Éponine are the same age; though back then Cosette looked much older and now Éponine looks older. Their circumstances are now completely changed. Éponine remembers Cosette as a gray little girl, who looked more like a malnourished lark than a girl. The Thénardiers had supposedly been taking care of Cosette for her mother, but really Cosette was more of their slave.

Éponine had been too young to really know much about it. All she knew was that sometimes she wanted someone to play with when her little sister Azelma was being too much of a baby and 'Parnasse was being too mean, and her mother absolutely forbade her to play with "the rat", as they called Cosette. Then one day a mysterious man came and took Cosette away, and that was the day things began to go bad.

The inn began failing due to bad press, ever since the policeman Inspector Javert had come to inquire after the mysterious man; Javert had cast a pallor over the inn door, and it never was quite as popular as it had been before. Her parents had begun to turn to (even more) illegal ways of earning their money, and as Éponine was now old enough, she was forced into helping with their schemes. When she was eleven she was taught to write her first four words (the only four words she would know how to write for a few years): _les cognes sont l__à_—the cops are here—which she used to alert her parents when she was keeping watch.

Her father had eventually become more and more involved in his gang, the Patron-Minette, which included a group of three other men, who were as twisted and criminal as her father. Their names were Babet, Claquesous, and Gueulemer. 'Parnasse had begun hanging around with them, but he was still the youngest and most innocent of them—only a year older than Éponine.

When Éponine had had Montparnasse, she'd had some refuge in her new lifestyle—they lived in poverty and she was forced to ignore her conscience twenty-four hours a day—but at least she had a friend, someone to talk to and take comfort in. Well, until 'Parnasse shot his first man and discovered that her true calling apparently laid in being an assassin.

After that Éponine had no one.

But then she and her family had adopted the pseudonym of "Jondrette", and moved into the Gorbeau House in Paris. Their next-door neighbor was a handsome young man by the name of Marius, who had the most beautiful blue eyes. He was kind to Éponine, despite her being dressed practically in rags at this point. And what could she do? She needed someone, since 'Parnasse had left her. And so she did what any girl would do at that point—she fell in love.

Éponine had many resources on the streets, and she easily found out that Marius's last name was Pontmercy and he was a bourgeois—his grandfather was a Monsieur Gillenormand, who was extremely rich. His father had been a general in World War I, and had been a firm Situationist. Marius had begun to admire his father greatly and he too adopted Situationist ideas, which caused a rift between the old man Gillenormand and him, and so Marius was turned out of the house and he refused the money his grandfather sent him every month. He moved into the Gorbeau House, next door to Éponine, in self-inflicted poverty.

Then her parents had been arrested and went to jail, along with Montparnasse and the rest of the Patron-Minette, so with no financial means, the "Jondrette" girls had been turned out of the Gorbeau House. Éponine and Azelma had to live on the streets for a while (which wasn't that drastic of a change for them since they'd done their best to stay out of the apartments whenever their parents were around). Eventually Azelma had found work as a maid in the home of a rich old lady owing to Azelma's charismatic girlishness that had made the old lady find her to be a very good companion.

The old lady didn't like Éponine at all, of course. _Too blunt_, were the words she'd used. (Although, all Éponine had done was tell her that her eye shadow was much too blue for a woman of her age.)

Then Éponine had found out about Shakespeare and Company, the bookshop run by the American George Whitman—he had thirteen beds in the back of the shop, where he let struggling poets and writers stay. Éponine had never been published, but ever since _les cognes sont là_, she had developed a love for writing and often wrote. She'd saved a camera from the old days too, before Cosette was taken away and everything had gone bad, and she'd taken many photographs too.

She went to Shakespeare and Co., under the slightest hope that M. Whitman would let her stay—she showed him her black notebook of writing and the four rolls of film she'd used up. He'd pursed her lips at her talent—something she later learned he did when he was impressed—and nodded.

That was when things had started getting better.

Now Éponine at least has a place to stay, she is going to classes to develop her apparently formidable natural talents in what she loves to do. Since moving into Shakespeare and Co. about a year ago, she had begun filmmaking (mostly in the nouvelle vague style). She'd started classes at the University about six months ago. Then she'd met Enjolras, and practically forgotten about Marius.

Until tonight. Tonight Courfeyrac mentioned Marius and she remembered everything all over again. And now Marius is in love with _Cosette_, of all people. Why her? The one girl that makes the irony of it all almost theatrical. Éponine isn't nearly as badly off as she once was, but that had taken work. Cosette…all Cosette had done was get swept away by the mysterious man in the yellow coat, and now she is living in riches and without any problems.

Éponine stops walking. She has, sometime during her musings, crossed the Seine almost without realizing it, and is now on the Rue Plumet, about three miles from where she had left the Café Musain. It is another three miles back the direction she came from to get to the Rue de la Bûcherie, where Shakespeare and Co. and her bed is waiting, and she is far too tired and it is far too late to start walking back to the Fifth Arrondissement.

So she settles down, her back against a brick wall, and decides to sleep there. Sleeping in the streets isn't anything she's not used to, and it's a fairly warm night for early January. Besides, she has a coat now, which was something she didn't have back when she did this every night.

She is just drifting off when she hears a familiar whisper. "_Cosette!_"

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**Notes: **I hope you liked this chapter, and please review:) I'll be going out of town tomorrow for the whole weekend, so it may take me a while to get back to you, but our hotel has wi-fi so I should be able to answer your review sometime this weekend. I won't be able to update though, but I'll try to update as soon as I get home:) So please leave me a review for me to see after the six-hour car ride! Thanks:)


	7. In Which There Is A Schism

**Notes:** Thank you so much to all the reviewers in the last chapter—frustratedstudent, Phoenixflames12, a whisper away, EbonieCourfeyrac, Musichetta, and Deadtom77. I hope you like this chapter as well:)

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**BARRICADE**

**CHAPTER VII**

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_A special thank you to Musichetta, who has been historically fact-checking this story. Thanks for pointing out the (sometimes many) inaccuracies—this chapter is dedicated to you_

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There are two kinds of heartbreak.

Sometimes when a heart breaks it shatters, into forty thousand pieces leaving broken glass and blood everywhere. But sometimes a heart breaks silently, leaving only quiet pain.

Éponine's heart does the latter now, as she watches Marius go to the wrought-iron gate of 55 Rue Plumet, place his hand against the bars, and whisper Cosette's name. So this is the lovely Cosette's new home—a beautiful, gated house concealed away by vines growing over the walls and an overgrown garden. It's old, dating from probably the nineteenth century, and looks out of place in its contemporary mid-twentieth century surroundings. The moonlight softly caresses the night-blooming flowers that fill the garden, making the entire home look like the penultimate romantic setting.

Then Cosette appears in her nightgown, smiling radiantly, and everything is perfect.

Well, perfect except for the girl in a black coat standing nearby in the shadows.

Éponine wishes with all her heart that this were a movie. That Marius and Cosette aren't _really _in love, that they're just actors playing out a script, and that this perfect garden and perfect house and perfect everything is all just part of the perfect set that Éponine designed. If this were a movie, Éponine would be controlling everything that goes on. All of the sweet words Marius and Cosette whisper to each other would be meaningless, and Éponine could capture all of this perfection with her camera.

The scene is perfect for a movie. Éponine can see it now, a New Wave film starring a young couple who court by moonlight, through an iron gate. Perhaps some sort of adaptation of _Romeo and Juliet_.

But this isn't a movie, and Éponine isn't a third-party observer with no connection to the scene. Well, she is a third-party observer; but unfortunately, she has plenty of emotional connection to both of the characters. Enough emotional connection that when Marius tells Cosette that she is the light of his life, her first reaction is not (like it would be normally) to gag at the cliché compliment. No, her first reaction is to let herself cry because when he says those words to Cosette and not her, it feels as though her heart is being ripped out from her chest.

For a while she watches them talk to each other, unable to hear a word they're saying as they murmur under their breaths. Then all of a sudden Marius's voice raises slightly, just loud enough so that Éponine can hear. "But Cosette, I love you," is what he says.

Éponine turns and runs. She doesn't hear anything else.

She has been running for about half an hour when she finds herself in front of Shakespeare and Co., and she contemplates going back inside to the comfort of her bed. But when she takes out her key and moves to unlock the door, she finds she can't. Or she doesn't want to, she's not really sure which. Either way, she moves away from the door, and keeps running. She crosses the Seine, and slows to a walk, charting a course to the Palais Garnier opera house. The opulent Beaux-Arts building has always fascinated her, and if she goes there she can maybe scout out some locations for her upcoming thesis film for her classes. Then at least the whole night won't be a waste.

She turns onto the Rue de Rivoli and begins making her way towards the Avenue de l'Opera, passing by the flats where richer students reside. It's much darker now, past midnight, and even though Éponine has lived on the streets and can take care of herself, she still tenses up slightly when she sees a shadow of a person behind her. A glance over her shoulder tells her that there is a man following her, and so she crosses the street.

The man crosses the street as well.

Now Éponine is beginning to panic as she tries to decide what to do. _Deal with the problem, then ask questions later_, her father's voice plays unbidden in her mind. She takes a deep breath and slows down a bit, allowing the man to catch up with her. Quick as a flash, she turns and hurls a punch into the man's gut, then follows it with a knee in his crotch. The _uggg _sound that follows as the man crumples to the ground is slightly familiar, and Éponine, satisfied that the man is sufficiently disabled, asks him angrily, "What are you doing?"

The man rolls over, and familiar golden hair and blue eyes watery with pain peer up at her. "Dammit Éponine, that hurt," says the man, and Éponine realizes that she just punched Enjolras.

"What are you _doing_? Why are you following me?!" she snaps, as she does her best to wipe away the tears over Marius that she had unconsciously been shedding.

He reaches a hand up to her. "Help me up, Éponine." She does, and he leans against her as he hobbles a few steps. He winces. "Where did you…how the hell did you do that?"

Éponine shrugs. "You…you have to learn some things to survive sometimes."

Enjolras realizes that she has slipped back into her inscrutability, becoming enigmatic once more and that's all the answer he will get from her. "I wasn't following you or anything, I swear. I need to get back to my flat."

"Oh…I'll let you go then." But as soon as she does, he sways and falls over again, grimacing and clutching his side. Éponine realizes that maybe she hurt Enjolras a bit more than she intended to.

"I'm…I don't think I can make it on my own…" he grits his teeth, and Éponine can tell it pains him to admit his inability. So to save his the rest of his dignity, she slings one of his arms over her neck to stabilize him before he has to ask her for help. He smiles gratefully. "Thank you. My flat is here."

They turn into a building, and Éponine retrieves Enjolras's key to the flat, and they ascend the dimly lit stairs with some difficulty, Enjolras groaning the whole way. Éponine unlocks the door to his flat for him, and she leads him inside, now supporting all of his weight.

The cramped flat is a mess; papers litter the couch, the table, the bed…the mess reminds Éponine of the day she met Enjolras, when he had come into the shop looking for the Sartre book, his arms filled with the same mess that fills his room. The only neat part of the whole place is an ornate wooden floor-to-ceiling bookshelf, packed with books organized alphabetically by author—mainly about the French revolution, essays of various contemporary philosophers (including the Sartre he'd bought from Shakespeare and Co.) and histories of the government workings of France. There's not a single novel in the entire shelf, Éponine thinks at first—none of the romantic novels that her mother was obsessed with (and from where she had extracted her two daughters' names). Then, when she's helping Enjolras lie down on the couch, she glimpses a single thin volume of fiction, to the right of an extensive collection of Jean-Paul Sartre—William Shakespeare's _Julius Caesar_. How appropriate, she thinks. Even the stories Enjolras reads pertain to revolution.

She goes to the tiny excuse for a kitchen that is connected to the bedroom (and the living room) and pours Enjolras a cup of water and gets him a sleeping pill and brings it all to him, where he is sprawled out on the couch. During the excitement of being followed and accidental near-murder of Enjolras, she had forgotten Marius and Cosette, but now that the calm has returned the pain comes back in full force.

She bites her lip hard enough to draw blood, and Enjolras notices the whitening of her face. "Éponine?" he asks drowsily. "Are you all right?"

She shakes her head no.

"Is it Pontmercy?" he asks. When she doesn't answer he nods. "I knew it. He's an idiot. Blind. Can't see…what's right in front of him." He's nearly passed out now, thanks to the powerful sleeping pill.

Éponine wipes at her eyes by rote, even though they are dry. She has successfully drilled it into herself that emotion is a weakness, or so she thinks.

"'Ponine, I…"

Just the nickname _'Ponine _kills her. It reminds her of the days of gold light. When her father was good and kind and they had money and she had pretty clothes. It reminds her of when Montparnasse was still 'Parnasse, an innocent boy quite similar to Marius and Enjolras and the rest of Les Amis—before he killed a man and became just another filthy member of the Patron-Minette.

This time when she wipes her eyes she finds there is something to wipe away.

"I have to go," she whispers, and she leaves—Enjolras with a broken rib, her with a broken heart.

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**Notes: **Sorry for that ending...(please don't kill me!) But I hope you liked it, and please review! And now for a shameless bit of self-promotion heh...:) I will probably be posting soon an É/E ballet AU one-shot that I wrote for the lovely enjolrawr on Tumblr, so when I do I would appreciate it so much if you all would read and review? I'll let you know for sure when it's up:) And also, I've started a non-fanfiction writing blog: www . ink-well . weebly . com – just remove the spaces from the link:) I would be so grateful if you came and told me what you think of my normal writing over there.

Well! Now that the self-advertising is over (sorry if it seemed a bit narcissistic 0_0), thank you guys so much for the support on this story, and I hope you'll review this chapter. I love you all!


	8. In Which Enjolras Searches

**Notes: **Thanks to the reviewers for the last chapter: frustratedstudent, Deadtom77, and Musichetta:) I'm glad you liked it. Also, the ballet fic is now up:) I hope you guys like this chapter of Barricade, and please don't forget to review!

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**BARRICADE**

**CHAPTER VIII**

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January 1968.

Nothing. Joly bandages Enjolras's rib, and when he asks how it happened Enjolras doesn't answer.

February 1968.

Éponine shows up to no more meetings at the Café Musain, and Enjolras doesn't see her once. His rib begins to heal.

March 1968.

His rib heals fully, so he decides that maybe he should go find her, so he comes up with a book to ask her for: _The Opium of the Intellectuals_, by Raymond Aron-the book she had been reading that day when it had just been him and her and Paris and the river. The book that goes against everything he believes in, wherein Aron shoots every ideal that Enjolras ever had—about China and Maoism and how Communism is the next frontier of France-straight to hell.

It doesn't matter, he just needs to talk to Éponine. He doesn't even care if it's arguing about politics and their highly differing views, he just wants to see her and hear her voice. It's been three months, and sure, he only knew her for a week before she disappeared, and of course his life is still plodding along as usual (he is planning a revolution after all) and it's not like she was a supremely large portion of his life. But she was there, and she was important, and Enjolras needs her now.

So he leaves his apartment on the Rue de Rivoli, and crosses the Seine to number 37 Rue de la Bûcherie. The now familiar doorbell rings when he enters, and the shop is empty. Éponine is nowhere to be found, but he expected that, considering how the seemingly small bookshop seems to have hidden recesses that are accessible only to a select few.

Whitman however, does appear, called by the ringing bell, and Enjolras quickly stops him. "Monsieur! Please. I need to speak to Éponine." The old man stops suddenly, turning and staring at Enjolras. His eyebrows (which are bushier than ever) crinkle in confusion, knitting into one mass of white, nearly obscuring his eyes, as he tries to figure out who this disheveled young man in red is.

"Éponine? She left."

Enjolras blinks. "I'm...sorry, what?"

Whitman repeats himself wearily, with a shrug. "She no longer lives here. I don't know why. She just told me that she found lodging elsewhere."

"Can I...can I look at her room? I think...I think she may have left me something." It's a blatant lie-he has no reason to believe anything of the sort, but he's hanging on to the slightly nonexistent chance that she has. Whitman nods, handing him a key.

"In the back."

Enjolras wanders past the open front of the shop, to the back where he has never been before. After rows and rows of bookshelves, he finds a door, crammed like an afterthought between all the books. He twists the doorknob and enters, finding himself in a room that resembles the year one dorms at the University, only even smaller-thirteen beds lined up against either wall, each with a small dresser in the base. Each bed is covered in an impersonal off-white bedspread, except for one.

It's the bed in the corner farthest from the door, covered in a thin blue quilt that is the same color as the dress that she wore once. He goes to it, looking for anything at all to remind him of her, but besides the quilt there's nothing there.

He remembers the dressers then, and mentally slaps himself. Of course. Éponine is as private as a person can get; despite being her friend-if you could call it that-a week he still barely knows anything about her. He pulls the drawer open with some difficulty-it hasn't been opened in a while. There's only one thing inside, and Enjolras immediately recognizes it-the black leather-bound journal Éponine had been writing in the first day he met her

He takes it out, and finds that all the pages have been torn out raggedly, leaving bits and pieces of some pages. He can see some blots of ink, edges of drawings, but not enough to really read anything. He flips frantically, unable to accept the truth that Éponine really hasn't left him anything at all. That she is gone and no one knows where she is.

He wouldn't be surprised if she had just bought a train ticket to the middle of nowhere; he wouldn't be surprised if she doesn't know where she is either.

Just as Enjolras is thinking this, something drops out of the seemingly empty journal—a tiny pair of opera glasses, fashioned delicately out of gold, complete with small panes of glass in the frames. He hunts through the journal again, carefully looking for any clue about the opera glasses. Of course, it could be that the glasses weren't even meant for him to find, but his infernal hope blots that idea out quickly.

He finds his clue quickly. An ink scrawl, across a strip of paper just barely hanging onto the binding of the journal. _Ask M. for M. Leroux._

And that is all. Ask Monsieur for Monsieur Leroux.

Enjolras can only assume that Éponine's cryptically worded note (mostly due to the double use of _monsieur_) is referring to Monsieur Whitman. At least, the _first _time it mentions monsieur. Jumping up, he grabs the journal and opera glasses and rushes out of the dormitories. "Monsieur Whitman!" he practically shouts. "Monsieur Whitman, I'm looking for a Monsieur Leroux."

Whitman gives him an odd look. "If you're looking for his physical being I hate to disappoint you. He died in 1927. His grave's not in Paris either."

His words leave Enjolras bewildered. Did Éponine really tell him to search for a dead man?

"But," continues Whitman, "his words live on."

Of course. Éponine wasn't telling him to look for Monsieur Leroux, she was telling him to look in his book.

Soon, Whitman deposits a novel entitled _Le Fant__ô__me de l'Op__é__ra _in Enjolras's hands. "His most famous work. One of Éponine's favorites."

"Thank you, Monsieur," says Enjolras. He buys the book, and takes it with him to the bench where he sat with Éponine.

When he cracks the book open to a random page in the center, he finds a dried rose petal. Thankfully it's lost its choking perfume. He hates roses.

Back at the beginning, the same ink scrawl marks its territory on the inner cover: _Éponine Thénardier, __1967._ So she had claimed this book for herself just last year. He begins flipping through the book randomly, and finds something odd—in the whole first half of the book, every time the word _opera _is written, it is underlined. He is certain this is part of Éponine's game—it does, after all, match with the opera glasses she left him. At around one hundred pages, the underlining fades to a trickle and stops altogether, as if she got bored of underlining.

He thinks he's pieced together what she wants him to do—but he's not sure. So he starts from page one and begins to read the first novel he's read in a long time.

About an hour later—he's torn through it just as if it were one of his Maoist books—he can't say that he loves it, but he likes it enough, and he can see why Éponine would love it. This _is _the girl whose very name comes from a romance novel, after all. And he's gotten his last clues—the two times _Garnier _is mentioned in the book, his name is underlined as well. And on the final page, in her writing: _Meet me any day, 4:00 pm_.

He checks his watch. It's three-twenty. It's settled. She wants him to meet her at the Palais Garnier at four, and he's going to do it. It doesn't matter that she was the one who completely abandoned him, who just walked out of his life three months ago. He is going to see her and find out why.

He doesn't think of the technicalities (how would she know what day he was going to find the clues and go meet her?)—he just starts running.

Enjolras gets close to the Palais Garnier at about three-fifty. Even from a distance he can see her—she's wearing a red dress today, making her very noticeable against the gray afternoon. She appears to be filming; her dark hair is pulled in a braid.

He lets out a breath of relief he didn't know he was holding—relief that it wasn't a hoax, that he hadn't misinterpreted the clues. That she really is here.

He walks faster.

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**Notes: **I hope you enjoyed this chapter, which held a nod to Phantom, which is another book/musical that I really love:) Please don't forget to review!


	9. In Which They Go to the Opera

**Notes: **Thank you for the reviews for the last chapter from frustratedstudent and Phoenixflames12 who reviewed the past two chapters! I'm glad you all liked it and here is the next chapter:)

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**BARRICADE**

**CHAPTER IX**

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Éponine waits nervously at the Palais Garnier. She's been going to the opera house every day at three-thirty for two months now, waiting for Enjolras to figure out the clues she left him and meet her. So far, he hasn't shown. Maybe he didn't find any of the clues, maybe she made them too vague. Maybe he couldn't figure any of them out. But no, that is an insult to Enjolras's intelligence, she thinks to herself. He might have lived most, if not all, of his life in sheltered comfort, but as far as most bourgeois go, he's smart enough. After all, he is studying sociology at the École Normale Supérieure, as well as political science. Surely he can figure out her simple clues. Right?

Even after reassuring herself, Éponine still has doubts. He hasn't come for _two months_. Then she has an awful idea—what if he went looking for her right after she disappeared from his life? She hadn't left the clues until February—there was a gap of about three weeks there where she had no interaction with Enjolras or Les Amis—if he had gone to the bookshop then he would've found nothing. What if he gave up after that?

Or worse—what if he doesn't even care that she is gone from his life? Perhaps when she disappeared he just forgot completely about her and returned to his revolution and his Patria. After all, they'd only been friends for a week. And Enjolras did seem to be a very single-minded person, thinking only of a better France.

But that is what makes him and Les Amis so much better than the rest of the student rioters, isn't it, she thinks to herself. The other rioters want nothing beyond larger classrooms, cheaper textbooks, dormitory co-education. They blindly believe in China's Communism as the path to get what they want (despite Mao Zedong hardly telling the rest of the world a thing about China.)

But Enjolras and Les Amis, though they want these things too, view them only as a stepping stone on the way to a new France. On the way to reviving their motherland and remaking her into the glorious days of old. As Enjolras once put it, the days when a Frenchman was the bravest of all. When the people held the power.

Éponine doesn't know whether to be roused to inspiration or to burst into tears at the idealism of her friends. They truly believe they can change things—they are the outliers of this revolution. The other rioters want trivialities—fleeting changes that will affect only them, and only for four years of their lives. Les Amis want a new world, a new dawn for France.

Maybe she ought to cry, because as an outsider, she sees clearly. As an outsider, she can tell that they are alone in this dream, this beautiful, naïve dream.

And just like that, she has her thesis film. She will make a film about the student revolution, highlighting the beauty of Les Amis and their belief in their dream. It will be a study in French nouvelle vague, because a) that is her professor's favorite film style, b) it fits well for a documentary style, and c) it's cheap to make.

But to make this film Éponine needs Enjolras. She purses her lips. It's time to stop all this, the game of clues and wondering if today will be the day he finally shows up. If she's going to use this idea for her thesis film she'll have to go find Enjolras herself.

He's going to be in one of two places at four in the afternoon: the Café Musain, planning for their revolution, or in the Sorbonne studying. She decides to go to the Musain first, and starts walking away from the grand Palais Garnier, making her way down the Avenue de l'Opéra.

Enjolras sees her walking towards him, unaware that he is there. "Éponine!" he shouts, laughing. "Éponine!"

The scene that follows is like something from one of Éponine's movies. She would shoot it in color, just for the contrast—two figures in red meeting against the gray backdrop of a rainy day; the opera house standing tall in the background.

Éponine smiles. "Enjolras," she says quietly. The first thing he notices is how her smile has returned to its previous frozen state, forcing her lips into a curve while her eyes stay empty. "How are you?" The next thing he notices is her voice. It too, has frozen.

He takes hold of her hands. "Éponine, what's wrong?" he asks worriedly.

Silently, Éponine curses, dragging her hands away. She had been trying to act normal, act like her life was still okay and Enjolras was just an old friend she was talking to. But Éponine hides from the people she loves, and she hides now from Enjolras. She doesn't want him to know how dark these past few months have been, ever since she moved in with Montparnasse—she doesn't want him to know how she's come to the opera house every day waiting for him.

"Nothing," she smiles brightly. It reaches her eyes with a forced quality. "I am perfectly fine."

Enjolras accepts the answer for now, and asks if she would like to go get some coffee. She agrees, expecting to be led to the Café Musain, but instead he takes her to the Café de la Paix, at the intersection of the Boulevard des Capucines and the Place de l'Opéra. It's much fancier than the Musain—and much more expensive, too, she doesn't doubt. Maybe two months ago she would've been able to afford it, when she didn't have to worry about paying rent to Monsieur Whitman, and he gave her a few francs every now and then if she did extra work. But now that she's living with Montparnasse, he makes her pay half the rent, and she has no job. Thank God for her scholarship, or else she would have no way to go to the University either.

"Enjolras…there?"

He nods. "Their coffee is much better than the Musain's."

Éponine doesn't doubt that—the Café Musain is much better at serving alcohol than coffee—but the Café de la Paix is a place of dreams. It's part of the world-famous Place de l'Opéra, for God's sake! Paris's rich and famous—the type of people who go see operas—go there and sit out on the patio in their designer clothes and generally look beautiful. The Café de la Paix is part of the movie in Éponine's mind—a moment immortalized in film as perfection, a montage of shots of the exterior of the café. The exterior, never the interior. Éponine has slept on the streets—she doesn't belong with the canned oxygen of the rich.

But Enjolras is taking her by the hand and taking her inside. "I'm paying," he says, and they take a table for two out on the patio.

After they sit and order, Éponine says uncomfortably, "Enjolras, I really don't belong here."

He rolls his eyes. "Why? Just because you're not as rich as the rest of these pompous bourgeoisie?" Éponine shrugs. "See, this is what we're trying to change, 'Ponine. Class barriers—they're useless! They just block the path for people who might actually be able to _do _something." He leans closer to her, to emphasize his point. "_No one _deserves to make you feel like you can't go and have a cup of coffee someplace just because you weren't born in a mansion."

Éponine smiles, a true smile this time, and Enjolras discovers he really likes it when he's the reason her smile reaches her eyes. "Thank you, Enjolras," she says.

"No problem." Their coffee comes, and they drink in companionable silence for a few moments. Then simultaneously, both put their coffee cups down on the table. Enjolras stares at Éponine, and she meets his gaze apprehensively. She knows that now he is going to ask all the questions she had hoped to avoid. When he does, his voice is choked. "Éponine…why did you go?"

"I had no—choice." Her voice breaks slightly. "I…I am related to some bad people, okay? And they…enjoy hurting the people I love."

The first thing Enjolras latches onto is _the people I love_. Does Éponine love him? But of course not, he thinks. She was just using the term _love _generally, the way most people throw it around. Next there is confusion. "What do you mean? You can't be related to bad people, Éponine, no—" He's convinced she's just being melodramatic, deluding herself, and he takes her hands comfortingly.

She glares menacingly at him. "My father is the _leader_ of the Patron-Minette," she snaps, and draws away from him. She can tell she's shocked him now, as he stares at her. Everyone has heard of the Patron-Minette, the gang that terrifies the streets. "Yes. Exactly. Try and tell me that's not bad."

He is silent, unsure.

Now Éponine's temper is acting up; sure, Enjolras is the passionate, easily angered student protester but Éponine can match him in anger word for word. "Yes. You see, you don't have a response. All of you, you and your friends, you talk about removing social classes and you say that you want to help the poor, but you don't know what it's like." She practically spits at him, "You're just as bourgeois as all the rest of them. Only worse, because you're deluding yourself into believing you can change things."

Still Enjolras doesn't say anything, only stares at her mutely in what could be construed as catatonic shock, and Éponine worries that perhaps she went too far. After all, she did just tell him that he was bourgeois, when he had spent most of his life trying to shake that title off. She wonders if perhaps she should apologize-

She does so in a rush. "Shit, Enjolras, I'm so sorry-I really didn't mean that, please-don't look at me like that! I-you're not deluding yourself, I swear, I...I believe in you-"

He shakes his head slowly. "No, no-I don't think you do." His words are so heavy and broken that Éponine wants to cry over what she has done.

He gets up and, for the first time in all their acquaintance, he is the one who walks away from her.

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**Notes: **Well...I hope you liked this chapter, it was the longest one yet:) One thing, a few people followed or favorited this story last chapter, but didn't review—I would really appreciate if you reviewed, even just a few words. It lets me know that people are reading and it's my motivation to keep writing:) Again, thank you to those who did review, and please review this chapter!


	10. In Which She Apologizes

**Notes: **Okay, this one is really, really, really, _really_ short, and I apologize in advance. I'll try to update more quickly for the next chapter because of how short this one is! Also, thank you to the reviewers who reviewed the last chapter: frustratedstudent, Phoenixflames12, Deadtom77, and guest Jeanvalswan (by the way, if you read this, do you have a Tumblr because I've seen Jean Valswan on Tumblr? Either way I love your guest name:D) Anyway! Here is the next chapter!

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**BARRICADE**

**CHAPTER X**

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Enjolras has always loved libraries. Even now, after three years of cramming and feeling like his head is going to burst at two am before an exam in various campus libraries, he still enjoys the feel of silence and the smell of books. He especially loves the Sorbonne library, with its majestic Baroque edifice and perhaps a little bit because of its inaccessibility. The Sorbonne is off-limits to first- and second-years (unless you are majoring in Semitic studies, which Enjolras most certainly was not) so it hadn't been until this year that he had been allowed entrance to La Sorbonne. Mainly it's the books though, shelves of them—they remind him of Shakespeare and Company, the bookshop Éponine used to work at, but with one key difference—the shelves at the Sorbonne were much more organized. Part of Shakespeare and Co.'s appeal had been the sheer amount of books—but only part of it. Éponine had been the other part.

But now she is gone. No, not completely gone. Just last week they had talked—at the Cafe de la Paix. Yeah, that had been a bitter disappointment. Enjolras shakes his head. Why had he gone to all that trouble, hunting down her clues and playing her stupid little game? She wasn't worth it, as she'd proved when she effectively ripped apart every dream he'd ever had.

"Excuse me, monsieur," a girl asks him, and Enjolras immediately bends his head a little farther, hiding his face in his book and avoiding eye contact. He has no wish to talk to anyone of the _female _race at the moment. Especially not when he had just been remembering Éponine and her tendency to break things. The girl doesn't seem to take his not-so-subtle hint of _I don't want to talk to you right now_, because she pokes him annoyingly in the shoulder. "Monsieur," she repeats, a smile evident in her face, which irritates Enjolras greatly. The last thing he wants to do right now is interact with a smiling well-intentioned member of the fairer sex. Mostly he just wants to read and wallow.

However, Enjolras was unfortunately raised a gentleman by his mother (who had been the only good person in his entire household), so he looks up. "What do you want, mademois—" He breaks off, speechless. It isn't just _any _smiling member of the female race standing before him. It is Éponine, and she isn't just smiling, she is beaming—as though everything is all right and she hadn't just blown up everything he fights for a week ago.

"Bonjour, Monsieur," she grins. "I was wondering if you could direct me to the Jean-Paul Sartre? I'm very interested in his work. Especially his _viewpoints on Maoism_." Enjolras stares at her, unable to say anything—and she slaps him lightly in the head. (Well, she thinks it's lightly. He winces.) Éponine rolls her eyes, clears her throat. "His _viewpoints on Maoism_, please, Apollo," she repeats with a small smile, using Grantaire's nickname for him, and he finds for the first time he doesn't mind it.

Enjolras returns her smile, as he realizes that that's probably the best apology he will get out of Éponine.

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**Notes: **I'm sorry, I told you it was short! I hope you review and I'll update very soon:)


	11. In Which the Amis Worry

**Notes: **Hi guys! Thank you so much for the wonderful reviews last chapter—they were lovely and made me smile idiotically a lot:) Thanks to: frustratedstudent, HermsP, a whisper away, and Phoenixflames12 for reviewing! This next chapter was really hard for me to write, but it's probably one of my favorite chapters in this story, so I hope you'll review!

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**BARRICADE**

**CHAPTER XI**

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It's mid-March, and the students are getting tense. Conditions at the University are worse than ever—the ugly Nanterre campus is overcrowded, and the sociology students are stirring everyone up. The administration is still ignoring all of their demands, and an occupation is planned for March 22nd—in six days, to protest the arrest of six students for protesting against the unofficial war on Vietnam. Normally Enjolras would be among the leaders of the occupation, helping with the plans, but as Les Amis have realized, he is increasingly distracted as the days go past.

He's late to the meetings at the Musain, and when he arrives he mostly just sips his coffee (he doesn't drink) and stares into space, and the other day he didn't even show up to the Café Musain at all. The second time he doesn't come, Les Amis eyeball each other, and collectively decide that something must be done. The first one to speak is Courfeyrac. "Something's wrong," he says.

Bossuet, that famously unlucky man, rolls his eyes. "Do you really think so," he replies in his usual non-questioning-question tone of sarcasm.

"I've never seen Enjolras like this," says Combeferre, and all of Les Amis suddenly grow serious, because it's true. As long as any of them have known him, Enjolras has been singularly devoted to one thing and one thing only—Patria. His only love has ever been France, and liberty, and justice, and freedom, and a million other seemingly stereotypical things, but for Enjolras none of that is stereotypical. He thinks of revolution and justice as not abstract concepts but very concrete, real things—and with these beliefs has come an abjectly fervent mechanism for dreaming. Enjolras has never been anything other than stubborn, bullishly pursuing his cause of a new dawn for France with a single-mindedness that is unmatched by any of the other student revolutionaries (it is widely acknowledged that Enjolras could probably give Daniel Cohn-Bendit, nicknamed _Dany le Rouge_, the fiery-haired and temperamental sociology student, a run for his money. And Dany le Rouge once called Francoise Missoffe, the minister of youth and sports, a Nazi, causing widespread rage in the administration.)

So for Enjolras to suddenly to lose devotion in his dream is, well, to say the least, worrying. Combeferre, ever the philosopher, begins to wonder aloud: "What could make a man abandon the ideals he has held for so long? It seems that if the belief is simply a passing fancy then the mere passage of time can carry it away. But sometimes a belief becomes a spark. When you take someone else's idea and it becomes your own idea—becomes a spark, then that is not so easily lost. That is our Enjolras. He is flame incarnate—Patria consumes him and he would not so easily allow that to be extinguished."

"Yes, yes," Feuilly impatiently flicks the fan he is making for some rich comtesse in Combeferre's direction. "Thank you for obscuring the aspects of Enjolras's character that were formerly so clear to all of us with your flowery language."

Jehan looks up from where he had been drawing in his journal. He hasn't been listening to a word they've been saying, and now he adds his own contribution to the conversation: "I like flowers."

Groans follow Jehan's statement, and a minor argument breaks out between Jehan and Feuilly, which escalates into a full-out brawl when Grantaire (who is completely drunk despite it being only two o'clock) punches Joly in the nose. Alliances within Les Amis form, and soon enough beer bottles are flying and Courfeyrac is knocked out, through no fault but his own. (He seems to have a gift for rendering himself unconscious.)

At this exact moment, Enjolras chooses to walk through that door and is greeted with a scene of extreme chaos—shouts filling the room, as Feuilly (who has somehow gotten into a which-country-is-better debate with Bahorel) stands atop a table and shouts, "_Mazurek Dąbrowskiego__!_ Poland is not yet lost!" and frantically waves a makeshift Polish flag around (really just one of their red flags splattered with white paint across the top half.)

When he nearly smacks Enjolras in the face with his Polish flag, Enjolras catches hold of the fabric, and yanks the flag from Feuilly's hands. "_That's quite enough!_" he yells in his loudest, most impassioned voice usually reserved for making speeches at rallies when he doesn't have a bullhorn. Les Amis freeze in their places (making for some rather comical positions, such as Joly wielding a thermometer at Grantaire.) "What the hell has gotten into all of you?!"

By way of explanation, Grantaire holds up his nearly empty beer bottle. Enjolras storms up to Grantaire and dashes the bottle to the ground, where it shatters into pieces of glass and beer. Les Amis cower in the face of their angry leader, but none more than Grantaire (who, since he is usually the brunt of Enjolras's rage, has gotten quite good at cowering.)

"I leave you all alone for a few days to…attend to business…and this is what happens? Have you all forgotten that we are _occupying the Nanterre _in a matter of mere days?!" No one wants to answer, for fear of saying the wrong thing and causing the transfiguration of Enjolras from a golden-haired young man to a terrible raging beast once more.

Eventually Courfeyrac steps forward. "We…we thought _you _had forgotten. We thought you had abandoned the left-side."

Now it is Enjolras's turn to be utterly perplexed. "Why would I ever abandon this? It's what I've worked towards for years, and the time is at last upon us—why would I leave now?"

"You seemed…distracted," answers Combeferre, adjusting his glasses nervously. "The past few meetings, you've barely said anything—you were always just staring off into space. And then you didn't even come to one meeting—and then you didn't come to that rally at the Sorbonne last weekend—"

"_What?_" asks Enjolras in shock. "There was a _rally _last weekend? Why didn't you tell me?"

"We did!" exclaims Joly. "You weren't listening!"

It takes a while for Enjolras to answer. "I'm sorry. You're right, I have been distracted. But like I said, I've gotten all that business attended to, and—"

Enjolras's apology has lightened the mood of the room considerably, as Jehan grins cheekily and asks, "What kind of business? A _woman_, perhaps?"

Grantaire bursts into drunk hiccupping laughter at that, and his chuckles last considerably longer than is necessarily appropriate. "I'm sorry, but did you say…_Enjolras _and a _woman?_" He goes off into a fresh bout of laughter. After a few more moments he slowly ceases his laughs and sits back contendedly. "Oh, Jehan, who knew you were such a joker," he says.

Enjolras turns a glare on Jehan. "Excuse me? I'm glad to see that the idea of me being with a female amuses you so much."

Jehan shrugs. "Well, Enjolras? Was it a girl that distracted you from your Patria? Maybe that girl from a few months ago—what was her name?"

The door to the upstairs back room of the Café Musain flies open, and Éponine stands in the entrance. "Hello, my name is Éponine and I need a job here." Her words come out in a rush, as if she had said them as quickly as possible to avoid chickening out. Les Amis stare at each other, silent for once.

"You have sublime timing, Éponine," hisses Enjolras out of the corner of his mouth.

She smiles and curtsies. "Thank you."

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**Notes: **I hope you guys liked this chapter! It was one of my favorites, so I would love it if you would please review:)


	12. In Which Eponine Is Hired

**Notes: **Hey guys:) This chapter picks up immediately after the last one ended—thank you so much to those who reviewed: frustratedstudent, PhoenixFlames12 and HermsP! I hope you guys like this one too.

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**BARRICADE**

**CHAPTER XII**

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For a few moments, the Musain is silent as Les Amis gape at Éponine. Then a (very) drunken Grantaire begins to clap slowly, and before long all the Amis are whooping at catcalling.

Enjolras turns to Éponine, confused. "I have _no idea _why they are cheering, I swear—" But Éponine is not paying any attention to Enjolras's embarrassment—she is bowing and smiling to the Amis. She blows a kiss and Jehan catches it—he seems to be tearing up.

"That was exactly like a movie," he whispers to Courfeyrac, who just rolls his eyes. "The way she appeared right on cue, they _have _to be in love now, it's simply all so romantic and I..." Jehan is getting worked up now, ignoring all common functions of grammar and punctuation (despite being a literature and poetry double major) as he rambles on in one gigantic run-on sentence, spouting stuff about _the fresh tender petals of love _or some other romantic nonsense, and Courfeyrac pats his back nervously, hoping to calm him down.

Enjolras overhears Jehan, and has to stifle his laughter. None of the Amis, let alone Jehan, know that Éponine is a filmmaker—it wouldn't surprise him if she had specifically waited outside the door for the perfect moment to enter, stage right. And somehow he doubts if Éponine would particularly appreciate being associated with _fresh tender petals _of anything, so he decides he'd better tell Jean Prouvaire to shut his overly poetic mouth before said overly poetic mouth is shut for him, most likely by Éponine's fist.

He is about to sit down and warn Jehan when Éponine comes and stands beside him. "So, about that job..." she says, and he remembers the real reason that she came. Not for him. Sure, last week at the Sorbonne she apologized (sort of) but now they are merely civil acquaintances (at least, that's what he tries to tell himself.) They're not on good enough terms to merit her coming to the Musain just to see him...right? Enjolras groans internally, because it has become obvious that no matter how sternly he talks to himself, there will still be a small part that hopes Éponine came for him.

"Yes, the job." His voice is suddenly formal and stilted, not anything like himself and that confuses Éponine. And she has to admit, it hurts a little bit too. "I am certain you could be a waitress," he says stiffly. "Or were you envisioning something else?"

Éponine bites back a laugh and deadpans, "Well. I have been considering perhaps an exotic dancer of some sort?" she replies in an equally formal tone. "I'm sure Grantaire would tip very well."

Grantaire hears this, and raises his half-full glass of vodka to her, and she smiles.

Enjolras just stares at her, in equal parts shock and confusion. "I...what?" he splutters.

She punches his shoulder. "Calm down, Apollo. I was making a joke."

Enjolras is bewildered as he rubs his shoulder (once again, Éponine has probably left a bruise) but Éponine is bewildered too. He doesn't know it, but that was the first real joke Éponine's made in ages.

She actually hasn't made one since she and Enjolras were last together, she realizes.

That scares her a little bit, if she's being honest. It's been a long time since Éponine has last realized she needs someone, or that such a big part of herself rests with them.

And that could be a problem.

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**Notes: **Another short chapter (sorry!) but I hope you guys liked it, and please review:)


	13. In Which News Is Received

**Notes: **Oh my gosh I'm so sorry it's been so long! School started, and I got really busy with that—so I'm so sorry for not responding to any reviews since then! Also, sorry for taking so long to update...I wouldn't be surprised if I've lost a bunch of readers. But thank you to those who reviewed while I was gone: frustratedstudent, HermsP, PhoenixFlames12, Deadtom77, and Musichetta. This chapter is for you:)

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**BARRICADE**

**CHAPTER XIII**

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A week or so goes by, and everything has settled into a comfortable, simple pattern. Éponine is the newest waitress at the Café Musain, and by far the most popular, thanks to the Amis. All of the Amis have taken to her strongly (the fact that she is good friends with both Enjolras _and _Marius increases their confidence in her greatly; plus Gavroche trusts her and everybody trusts Gavroche). Jehan has taken to her perhaps a bit _too _much for Enjolras's liking, but then again Jehan falls in love anew practically every single morning.

Éponine is still living with Montparnasse though, a fact that none of the Amis are particularly happy with (Bahorel especially)—it seems they've all become quite protective of Éponine. She swears that things with Montparnasse are okay now, since she is able to pay her half of the rent. But one day she shows up at the Musain with a couple of bruises, and Enjolras can't help but worry.

She doesn't like it when they leave her absurdly large tips (which they insist on doing every night)—because she doesn't like charity. But Combeferre says often that it isn't charity, pointing out several reasons why (but they mostly are too philosophical and reference Plato's _Republic_ often, which she hasn't read, so it pretty much just all flies over her head). Bahorel just tells her simply to consider the tips as presents for all the birthdays, Christmases, etc. that the Amis weren't present in her life for, so she acquiesces, but not without a small amount of trepidation.

Often when her back is turned, Enjolras adds one or two (or ten) francs to the pile of coins and bills that constitute her tip. He is the one Ami that Éponine refuses to take any money at all from, so he has resorted to giving her the money when she's not looking.

The Amis keep Éponine busy, and Enjolras is busy too. He is increasingly preoccupied as the planned day of the occupation of the Nanterre grows ever closer. All he seems to do is prepare, constantly making phone calls to the other radical leaders as they plan the exact times and locations. They are preparing pamphlets—one by Dany le Rouge that mostly talks about how the students should be permitted to go into the dorms of the opposite sex and sleep together if they so wish—most of the pamphlets are like that.

That is the official cause of the radicals' revolution, but Éponine knows that for Enjolras and the Amis it is more (as evidenced by the dramatically differing pamphlets that they have been distributing). Les Amis believe in more. So as she carefully slides a blank roll of film into her camera one night after work, all she can think of is how different the boys are from the other students. For them, this is about more than just resolving their sexual frustrations. For them, this is simply a stop on the way to a beautiful new day—a new republic.

And that's what her thesis film is going to be about. Éponine realizes that she isn't quite sure when, but at some point in time she has started believing in the boys' cause too.

The twentieth of March dawns just as the whole week has been going. Éponine wakes early, to avoid Montparnasse (who is usually passed out or hungover from the night before) and leaves their ratty apartment on the Boulevard Saint-Germain. It's about six in the morning when she leaves, dressed in black, and she is early to her shift at the Musain. Soon, all the Amis are intermittently entering the café as well. Formerly they came to the café only for their meetings at night, but as they day of the occupation approaches they've taken to spending their entire day at the Musain, planning nervously.

Soon all the Amis are seated, talking and laughing, as Éponine hands them mugs of coffee. When she's not looking, Courfeyrac slips three francs into her brown leather satchel, sliding the notes between the heavy books that load down her bag where it sits in the corner of the room.

None of them are happy about her situation with Montparnasse—a few try to convince her to leave him that morning—but she still swears up and down that it's fine. It's really not, but she is far too proud to ask one of the Amis to stay with them, even though every single one of them would say yes without a second thought.

Enjolras is making a speech now, about equality of the different classes, and Éponine is perfectly, serenely happy as she watches the boys together, their camaraderie and friendship, as Enjolras stands above it all, preaching equality and burning brighter with passion than she has ever seen him before. Everything is a perfect morning, as she takes a sip of her own coffee—when in walks a young, freckled student with innocent blue eyes. Her breath hitches at the sight of him—_Marius Pontmercy_. She sputters, nearly choking on her coffee and Joly, wide-eyed, pats her on the back while asking her if perhaps she's contracted whooping cough. Éponine recovers and quickly turns the other way, begging whatever god that can hear her that Marius won't catch sight of her.

She refills Feuilly's mug of coffee, and he asks, worried, "Éponine? Are you all right? You have the oddest expression..." Marius turns from where he'd been talking to Courfeyrac upon hearing Éponine's name.

He taps her on the shoulder. "Éponine?" he grins. "Hey, 'Ponine, d'you remember me?" She jumps, slightly shocked, and shrieks a little, upending the coffeepot onto Enjolras, standing beside her.

Grantaire bursts out alughing. "What a fine picture you paint, my dear Enjolras! Quick, someone bring me a canvas—or perhaps Éponine's camera. _Apollo Doused In Coffee—_this scene is too fine of a subject to miss!" he chortles, and Éponine strongly suspects that the black coffee she made him has since somehow been transformed into Irish coffee, undoubtedly by his own hand.

"Shit, Marius, you startled me!" Éponine curses as she turns and tries to wipe the coffee of of Enjolras's red sweater, only succeeding in smearing it further. He stops her, saying that it's fine, and Marius, laughing, hugs Éponine tight.

Enjolras can't pretend that his jaw doesn't clench slightly as Marius hugs Éponine, even though he knows perfectly well that Marius's feelings for Éponine are purely platonic. Éponine for Marius though...about that he's not so sure.

Marius eventually pulls away from Éponine (unfortunately still keeping his arm around her) and for some reason Enjolras feels a sense of relief. "I have an announcement to make," says Marius excitedly, blue eyes dancing in slightly insane circles.

Éponine smiles beautifully up at him, in a way that Enjolras has never seen her look at anyone else before, much less himself. "What is it, Mare?" Enjolras's eyes bug out at the nickname—_Mare?!—_and Grantaire feels obligated to point out his ridiculous expression to the rest of the Amis.

"Cosette and I are getting married!" he practically shouts, and he leans into Éponine, obviously expecting a _congratulations _sort of best-friend hug, or perhaps a kiss on the cheek. Instead he finds air. Éponine has slipped out from under his arm and now stands beside Enjolras.

The only thing she feels is a sort of snapping sensation, and she realizes the thing that snapped was whatever last connection she still held with Marius—whatever it was, it had been nothing more than a feeble thread linking them together. After that realization comes the shocking pain that her best friend is really gone from her forever.

The entire room holds its breath, waiting to see Éponine's reaction. She purses her lips and stares the room down, as if she too is waiting for her own reaction. Enjolras reaches out for her, though he doesn't know why—to comfort her, perhaps? But she snatches herself away from him—away from all of them. "_Don't touch me_," she hisses.

Then she spins on her heel and runs away as fast as she possibly can.

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**Notes:** Aww, poor Éponine :( But anyway, I hope you enjoyed this chapter and please review! Also be forewarned, now that school has started, I definitely won't be able to update as often, if at all. This story may be going on hiatus soon, but as of yet I don't plan to do that. For now, I'll try to update at least once a week—so expect another chapter by next Sunday, seven o'clock central standard time...and if I don't get a chapter up by then, feel free to message me and tell me to post! Seriously. Anyway, thanks:)


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